There is considerable scientific and policy interest in reducing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in healthcare and health status. Currently, much of the policy focus around reducing health disparities has been geared toward improving access, coverage, quality, and the intensity of healthcare. However, health is more a function of lifestyles linked to living and working conditions th...

This article contributes to the nascent literature on the health of urban Aboriginal people by comparing the health status and determinants of health of the urban Aboriginal and urban non-Aboriginal population in Canada. Data for the research were taken from the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey (APS) and the 2000–2001 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) Cycle 1.1. Framed within a population h...

Mental health disparities refer to the disproportionate amount of psychopathology found among persons of disadvantageous social standing, such as persons of low socioeconomic status (SES). Although social and self selection cannot entirely be ruled out as explanations for these differences, the accumulation of evidence supports a social causation interpretation for a large portion of this assoc...

Latinos in North Carolina experience disparities in sexual and reproductive health. To identify and explore assets for and barriers to sexual and reproductive health in the Latino community, an academic-community partnership engaged community health workers (CHW) in Photovoice, a participatory qualitative research methodology. Five sessions were completed in which CHW agreed on photo assignment...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention introduced a set of health status indicators in 1990 in response to a need for health status measures that present a broad overview of health and can be used by various levels of government (1). The indicators include 18 measures of health status and/or factors that put individuals at increased risk of disease or premature mortality. The developmen...

The articles point out that disparities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, generation, and geography are closely intertwined. Disentangling this web could be useful for developing more tailored interventions, but it is not critical for making progress in reducing racial disparities. For example, Ochoa and Nash3 discuss their work with the statewide Coalition for Health of Arkansan...

To conduct meaningful, epidemiologic research on racial-ethnic health disparities, racial-ethnic samples must be rendered equivalent on other social status and contextual variables via statistical controls of those extraneous factors. The racial-ethnic groups must also be equally familiar with and have similar responses to the methods and measures used to collect health data, must have equal op...

Much has been written on the existence of racial and ethnic differences in health status and health care access and quality in the US. Researchers, think tanks, government entities, and advocacy organizations have worked to summarize many of the root causes, environmental and behavioral influences, and health system factors that play a role. Yet sustained and significant change has been elusive...

The persistence of the black health disadvantage has been a puzzling component of health in the United States in spite of general declines in rates of morbidity and mortality over the past century. Studies that have focused on well-established individual-level determinants of health such as socio-economic status and health behaviors have been unable to fully explain these disparities. Recent re...

Health disparities (differences in health by socioeconomic groups) are a pressing issue in our society. This article provides an overview of a multilevel approach that seeks to understand the mechanisms underlying health disparities by considering factors at the individual, family, and neighborhood levels. In addition, we describe an approach to connecting these factors to various levels of bio...